Specific relevance instructions promote selective reading strategies: evidences from eye tracking and oral summaries

Background: The present study analysed how relevance instructions affect eye movement patterns and the performance in a summary task of six expository texts. Methods: Forty-one undergraduate students participated in the experiment; half of them were instructed to make an oral summary of the main ideas focusing on the ‘why’ question that appeared at the end of the first paragraph (specific relevance instruction), while the other half were instructed to make an oral summary of the main ideas of the text (general relevance instruction). Results: Eye movement patterns revealed that specific instructions promoted more and longer fixations and more regressions for relevant information than general instructions. A higher percentage of words in the summary task related to relevant information was recalled when readers received specific instructions. Conclusions: These findings suggest that relevance instructions influence how readers enact strategies to meet their reading goals and how these strategies are reflected on memory.